


Boundaries

by patroklassy



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Era, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-07-15
Packaged: 2018-07-24 03:45:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7492170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patroklassy/pseuds/patroklassy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erwin wants to tear down the walls he’s built between himself and Levi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Boundaries

Erwin’s eyes fluttered open and a voice said, “Welcome back. Took your damn time.”

He turned his head to see Levi sitting in the chair beside his bed, chin resting on his drawn-up knees. His eyes watched Erwin.

“How long . . . ?”

“Three days.”

It made Erwin’s head ache to think about how much work he would have missed in three short days.

Something of the expedition came back to him. “My arm . . .” He went to move his right arm and gritted his teeth when pain shot through what was left of it. “So that wasn’t a dream. Pity.”

“I’m afraid not. But at least you’re alive.” Levi’s eyes still watched him. The expression on his face pained Erwin almost more than his arm did.

_At least you’re alive._

He had to mentally switch roles, to place himself in a seat at the side of Levi’s inexistent hospital bed, to come close to understanding why Levi would be looking at him like that. Distress and relief fighting for power. But if their roles were truly reversed, he knew he would look at Levi the same way.

“You’ll want to bathe. I’ll get someone to heat some water.”  

Levi rose and crossed the room, lingering a moment in the doorway before passing on.

His absence gave Erwin the opportunity to take a breath and gather his thoughts. He started by shifting his attention back to his right arm, noting the neatly tied-up bandages and the blood that had seeped through them.

His head still ached and his thoughts merged and dispersed unevenly, as if untethered. Unnerving.

And his entire body felt battered, bruised and beaten-up. That was normal after an expedition, but everything else on top of it just made him feel _weary._

Levi returned a few minutes later. He kept talking in his familiar brash tones, and kept using his familiar unfiltered language—some “shit-for-brains” hadn’t cleaned one of the tubs, apparently—but Erwin couldn’t help but notice an uncomfortable uneasiness in Levi’s interactions with him. It was like something had been lost—like they didn’t quite recognise each other anymore. Just like Levi’s expression earlier, it almost hurt more than his arm.

But he took Levi’s arm gladly when he offered it to help him out of the bed, and relished the touch as they moved out of the room and into one of the hospital’s many halls, taking a right to a room nearby with a bathing area set up in it.

 The bath was steaming. Levi kept his gaze politely averted while he helped Erwin out of his clothes, but even that made Erwin uncomfortable; they had seen each other naked in the barrack bathrooms countless times before. To break the silence that had fallen, he asked, “Isn’t this a nurse’s job?”

“They’re busy enough.” Levi carefully drew the sleeve down off of Erwin’s injured arm. “And I know at least one of them didn’t wash their hands properly before going to reapply your bandages while you were out. She got a good talking to. I don’t mind.”

He took Erwin’s clothes and hung them up neatly while Erwin eased himself into the tub. Even something as simple as that was a chore with only one arm.

And Levi cleaned him. Erwin’s cheeks were too warm the entire time and it was all made worse by the fact that he still couldn’t shake that feeling of _distance._ Levi was right there, hands on Erwin’s body, but he could have been on the other side of the Walls for all the space Erwin felt between them.

He left the most private places for Erwin to do himself, politely turning his gaze away again.

Erwin hated it, the feeling of _distance_ and _politeness_ and too-long silences. A delicate balance in their relationship had been disrupted and his head was too foggy to figure out what exactly had caused it. His injury? His coma? His decision in the field?

Maybe it was the intimacy.

They had been close for a long time now—close enough that they would probably be living together and cooking each other breakfast each morning in another life. They both knew the potential was there, if only they were willing to let it happen.

But they were living _this_ life, where the feeling of inevitable death hanging over them was as commonplace as the feeling of hunger or stress.

So they had never been _this_ close. Levi had never had his hands on so much of Erwin’s bare skin before. Erwin had never been so helpless or so vulnerable around him. Somehow they had tripped when they overstepped the boundary silently made between them, and as a result they had been forced farther apart instead of pulled closer together.

When he was done, Levi held a towel up and wrapped Erwin into it as he stepped out of the bath. Erwin tried to dry himself but after the towel slipped from his grasp twice, Levi gently took it from him and finished the job with a clean one.

Then he helped Erwin back into his clothes and Erwin wondered if this would be a routine from now on. Maybe not with Levi—after all, their relationship was altered and he wasn’t sure yet what that meant—but with someone, a helper to get him dried, get him dressed, get him ready to stand in front of everybody as the commander again and try to ignore the looks of pity he was sure to get from his subordinates.

“Levi?”

Levi’s fingers paused, the shirt button they were holding only half-done up. He looked up to meet Erwin’s gaze. “Yeah?”

“Be honest with me. Can I still do it?”

“Do what?”

“Be a commander.”

Levi stared at him long enough that Erwin was forced to ask, “What?”

“Nothing.” Levi went back to doing up the button.  “It’s just I didn’t realise you needed arms to strategize or plan or give out orders, or to remind people what they’re fighting for. I don’t see how this changes much at all. Except I’m not going to let you do any of that until you’re healthy enough to leave the hospital.”

“I can’t just leave things adrift until I’m better. I’ve probably missed enough as it is.”

“I’ve been taking care of it. Hanji and Mike have been helping. We’ve got it covered, Erwin.”

Erwin closed his eyes, letting the sense of relief consume him for a moment. He should have known they would all look after things in his absence.

Before he could voice any such sentiment, Levi carried on.

“I waited outside the surgery room, you know. They locked the door, wouldn’t let me in. I heard it all.”

He had finished buttoning up Erwin’s shirt now, but he started fiddling with it, fixing the collar, flattening away the creases.

Erwin watched him, but Levi wouldn’t meet his gaze again. “Was it . . . bad?”

“I thought you were dying.” Levi’s hands went to the cuff of Erwin’s left sleeve, tugging it straight. “I banged on the door. Kicked and swore and told them I had to be there if you . . .” The empty sleeve now; he busied himself folding and pinning it back upon itself. “I thought you were going to die and I was going to be ten feet away from you when it happened, kept away by a fucking door.”

“Levi, I’m so sorry—”

“I should have been there,” Levi cut in, “when it happened. If I hadn’t had this stupid injury—if you had just let me come along—”

Levi hit his injured leg as he spoke, voice raw with frustration, and Erwin realised that this was it right here, the reason for the distance between them.

Guilt. Levi’s guilt.

Erwin’s whole body relaxed beneath Levi’s fussing fingers to the point that he almost staggered. “Levi. Oh, Levi.” He couldn’t help it—before Levi could react, Erwin used his one arm to grab him and pull him into an embrace.

After a moment of surprised tenseness, Levi relaxed into it. His arms found their way around Erwin’s waist and a moment later he was holding Erwin so tight it was almost difficult to breathe.

They stood like that for minutes, unmoving. Every now and again Levi drew in a long, shaking breath. Erwin understood the moment for what it was: Levi bringing his own vulnerability down to Erwin’s level. Rank had almost always been non-existent between them, nothing but a relic of Levi’s earliest days within the Survey Corps and a front to put up around their subordinates. They were equals in all things, even in this.

_At least you’re alive._

The boundary they had set up between themselves was a silent agreement of sorts, an unspoken acceptance that developing any kind of a more intimate relationship would be nothing but a shortcut to despair and ruin. They couldn’t let themselves be compromised in such a way, or for their decisions to be influenced by emotion.

Never before had Erwin felt more inclined to pull that boundary up by its roots and burn it.

Levi would do it in a heartbeat. Erwin saw it in every action Levi made around him, every word he spoke. The very act of waking up to find Levi waiting for him, attentive to the moment of his consciousness, was evidence enough that Levi already had a match lit, ready to set the boundary aflame the moment Erwin gave his consent.

And he wanted to. He really, really wanted to. It was getting harder all the time, and knowing how much he was going to rely on Levi over the next few weeks only made it harder still.

So he forced himself to step out of Levi’s grip, to put an end to a moment that could only lengthen into something more—something like whispering gentle things, something like kissing. Erwin banished the thought from his head the moment it came.

The way Levi responded, stepping back and holding Erwin’s gaze a moment too long before closing his eyes and turning away, let Erwin know that he understood the message: that boundary, that agreement, was still in place. For now.

Levi said, “I’m going to sort out some food for you,” and just like earlier he crossed the room and lingered a moment in the doorway, and then disappeared from view. 

 

#

 

From thereon, they made a valiant effort.

Levi managed to take care of Erwin, to help him bathe, dress, eat, and to deal with all the emotional, mental and physical damage that accompanied losing a limb, and Erwin managed to step back into his place as commander as if he had merely taken a half-hour break. Levi always stayed by Erwin’s side during the nights in the hospital but he stayed in his chair, leaving the bed to Erwin alone. And Erwin carefully monitored their interactions and answered every one of Levi’s unspoken questions—a touch or look that lingered too long; a breath sighed too deeply—with a soft but firm unspoken answer: the boundary stays.

They came close to slipping up. Every expedition, every gamble of their lives put a chip in whatever it was they had built between them. But it held. For now.

“I don’t care anymore,” Levi whispered to him one night. They were both in Erwin’s office, the light burning low, filing away plans for the latest upcoming expedition. The other Squad Leaders had just left. Erwin was sitting at his desk and Levi was behind him, leaning forward with his arms wrapped around Erwin’s torso and his chin on Erwin’s shoulder.

Erwin’s head told him even this was bad enough—this closeness. But he couldn’t bring himself to make Levi move away and have to feel the absence of his arms, his warmth.

“You don’t care?” Erwin repeated.

“No. If you die, this isn’t going to make it any easier. We’re kidding ourselves thinking it’s going to make a difference, Erwin.”

“I know,” Erwin said quietly. He lifted his left hand to clasp Levi’s arms closer against his chest. It struck him that this was the first time either of them had voiced what was between them, confirmed aloud that there was something more there than there should be. It had always been unspoken before, looks and actions. “But that’s not the point. Out there, I can’t afford to favour any life over another. If we let this happen, and I had to make a decision out there between you and somebody else—you and _multiple_ others—what kind of a position would that put me in?”

“And whether you’ve kissed me or not is really going to affect the outcome of that situation?”

Erwin sighed. He released Levi’s arms so he could cover his own mouth with his hand. Then he parted his fingers just enough to say, “Please don’t ask me again, Levi. I know I won’t have it in me to say no next time.”

Levi never spoke it aloud it again, but the question was always there.

 

#

 

When the moment came for them to part for what they felt, in their guts, was the last time, it was all Erwin could think about.

It should have been the moment for Levi to force his hand, to use the vulnerability of the moment to convince Erwin that it would be worth it, that there would be no repercussions.

The regret set in the moment Levi took to the air, Erwin berating himself for not seizing the opportunity himself, for not thinking that maybe, after being refused for so long, Levi had finally decided it would never happen. Or worse, that he no longer wanted it to happen.

Levi’s form grew smaller and smaller and every inch of Erwin’s body burned with concern, fear, regret, regret, regret.

He told himself it was for the best. He told himself that it was worth it for the pain they had saved themselves and each other. And what did it matter anymore? They would both be dead by sundown.

When the rock hit his side, cutting through his flesh and fracturing his ribs, and he was sure that his time was up at last, he realised that whatever pain he thought he had been saving them both from couldn’t compare to the pain he felt now—the pain of dying without knowing what a life with no boundaries between Levi could have been like. He had dedicated his life to finding freedom beyond the Walls. How hypocritical of him to have built more of his own, barring himself from the freedom of loving the man he so dearly wanted to love.

The next time he saw Levi there was a syringe in his hand, and it occurred to Erwin that this was a strange kind of afterlife. Then everything went dark, empty, and that felt more right.

When he woke up the ground was far too far away. But Levi’s voice in his ear was enough to calm whatever confused thoughts this might have induced, even if the words themselves weren’t so calming: “To your left, you giant idiot!”

Everything after that was mismatched, a patchwork quilt of scenes stitched together by moments of blackness. None of it felt real anyway, more like a dream.

It seemed to go on for hours and when Erwin woke from it, Levi’s voice was still in his ear.

“Welcome back. Took your damn time.”

Erwin’s titan form was steaming beneath them and there was something wrong about his right side, it was too heavy. Levi was holding him close and when Erwin lifted both arms to embrace Levi back, he understood why. The hole in his left side was healed too, all the flesh and bone back in place.

“Levi—you survived.” Erwin’s chest heaved, his breaths coming in gasps as if he’d just run a long way. Levi was little better. “You did it, Levi.”

Levi didn’t answer out loud, but the question was back in the way he desperately pressed his forehead to Erwin’s, a hand moving to hold the back of Erwin’s head as if he wanted to somehow force the two of them even closer. His eyes were shut tight, his mouth twisted as if in pain.

Erwin lifted Levi’s chin and kissed him.  

It took Levi by surprise. Years of not-quite-rejections had no doubt convinced him that that was all his relationship with Erwin would be, something not-quite.

But they were alive, they were so alive and Erwin was so full of relief that he couldn’t stop kissing Levi, couldn’t stop answering his unspoken question over and over again: yes, Levi, forever.  


End file.
